


Gravity

by jtsbar



Category: Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-17 12:37:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5869834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jtsbar/pseuds/jtsbar





	Gravity

For years, it had been just them. Partners on a job where they dealt with the worst of the world, and counted on no else to see them through. Now, in what seemed like a blink - but really, when she could bear to look at it, a tentative touch on a fresh wound, Alex knew this had always been coming - she and Bobby had sent each other spinning out of control, apart, alone.  
She'd walked out of headquarters, leaving her shield, her gun, the reams of paperwork that resignation demanded, and had gone to his street, the mulberry trees' huge leaves shading her, the sweet dark berries fallen and crushed under her feet as she started running down his block, breath catching in her throat. Then the few stairs, his door, and nothing. Nothing but silence as she knocked, and waited, listening for his voice, saying his name, hearing nothing back but emptiness.  
She tried calling him, and the phone in her hand just rang, not even going through to voice mail, with no echoing ring on the other side of Bobby's door. Alex shook her head, bit her lip hard enough she tasted blood, told herself she'd know if Bobby was in that house, gun or pills fallen from his hand. Told herself she'd know if her partner no longer breathed, if that mind of his no longer engaged the world. There were other places to look, other places he might go, now that he was untethered from the job, now that he felt the two of them no longer anchored each other.

Bobby Goren shoved his hands deeper into his jacket's pockets and hunched his shoulders against the wind. Here, six hours north of the city, it might as well be late winter, no matter the calendar said it was May, and spring. The wind came over the lake from Canada, and it came cold. He and his mother and brother had lived here for a few months, when a fresh start where no one knew them seemed possible. When they still believed it could be possible to outrun his mother's demons. When he hadn't yet learned that it was a single demon who rode his mother's soul. Let her go, Bobby told himself, let her rest. He believed she'd found some small measure of peace. It had to be enough. He had to let it be enough. As for the man, Bobby wished him nothing less than eternal torment, whatever form that might take. Bobby looked across the wind-lashed water, and tried to believe some greater justice existed that would exact a fitting penalty on the man who was his father.  
Eames understood he'd never once willingly settled for not knowing, and had, no matter the cost, been unable to choose ignorance. She would know that much, but not why there never was a chance of him completely breaking under the weight of finding out the DNA results. Bobby knew he'd never leave this world by choice as long as his partner walked in it. Even if he no longer had the right to call her his partner. Even if the best thing he could do for her was to stay as far away from her as he could. Bobby just didn't know how far that was, or how many days he could bear not looking at her, not feeling her walking beside him.

Alex Eames had no more pull than any average citizen walking in off the street into the FBI office. Where her gold shield might have gotten her past the first human wall of uninterested bureaucracy, now, without it, she was stuck in the general waiting area, butt aching from the hard plastic chairs obviously designed to discourage uninvited or unsubpoenaed members of the  
public from lingering long enough to get called in and actually take up an agent's time. Alex wasn't interested in just any agent. There were only two who might be able to help her. She didn't imagine Stahl or her partner would come right out and tell her if Bobby was actually working with them, but they might let something drop, might indicate with a fleeting expression that there was something to let drop.

Robert Goren hadn't raised his right hand and sworn to uphold the laws of the United States according to the FBI's interpretation of those laws. He'd just agreed to help finish the work his lieutenant had started and been killed for. He'd left PP1 and gone to the offices at 26 Federal for a short meeting covering the obviously highly edited facts the briefing agents considered necessary for him to know. The bitter irony of his first assignment was just another sign to Bobby that he was making the right choice. He stopped at his house only long enough to throw clothes and a few other things in a bag. He was headed north by noon on the same day that he'd kissed Eames for the first time and still chosen to walk away from her. Her choice, too, he reminded himself. And how often had they both been wrong about something? Not often, not for long. As he stood there in the cold wind, he wouldn't let himself believe they were both wrong this time.


End file.
